Achmea, Labour Party, Fidelity, Pareto, Schroders, Pinebridge, Candriam, JP Morgan Asset Management, Baillie Gifford, Hymans Robertson, Link Asset Services

Pareto Asset Management – The €4.5bn Norwegian asset manager has opened a German branch in Frankfurt and appointed Oliver Roll as country head. Roll is a longtime expert on the German and European asset management industry, and has worked as a consultant for companies such as Dr Heissmann, Feri and 4AlphaDrivers and asset managers such as Threadneedle, max.xs and Kleinwort Benson Investors . 

Lasse Ruud, CEO of Pareto, said the manager received its first inflows from German institutional investors last year and was continuing to see strong interest in its expertise, particularly in the Nordic markets. Frankfurt is Pareto’s second overseas branch after Stockholm. 

Achmea – The Achmea pension fund has appointed Lenneke Roodenburg as manager of its executive board. She starts mid-February. Roodenburg has worked as an asset-liability management and actuarial adviser at PGGM and Syntrus Achmea, and had management positions. She succeeds Sybrand Nauta, who left on 1 October 2017 and has now started his own consultancy firm, Fidado.

Labour Party – The UK’s Labour Party has appointed Jack Dromey as shadow pensions minister. The MP for Birmingham Erdington replaces Alex Cunningham, who stepped down in December. Dromey took up the pensions brief after having been shadow minister for business, energy and industrial strategy.

Fidelity – Michael Gibb has been appointed to the newly created role of head of stewardship and sustainable investing. He will oversee the manager’s strategy and policies on engagement, voting, and environmental, social and governance (ESG) integration across its active product range. Gibb recently completed an MBA and before that worked at investment companies including Martin Currie Investment Management, Credit Suisse and Gartmore Investment Managers. He reports to Fidelity’s CIO for equities, Paras Anand.

Schroders – The UK-listed asset manager has appointed Elisabeth Ottawa as deputy head of public policy, effective March 2018. She was previously at Raiffeisen Bank International where she was head of the firm’s EU liaison office. She has also worked at Austria’s finance ministry. Ottawa will be based in Brussels and will focus on European and international public policy, Schroders said. She will work with head of public policy Sheila Nicoll, who joined the company in 2014 having previously been director of conduct policy at the Financial Services Authority. 

PineBridge Investments – The private global asset manager has named Michael Karpik as its chief operating officer. He left State Street Global Advisors last year after 19 years at the firm, latterly as head of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. He will be based in New York and reports to CEO Gregory Ehret.

Separately, the firm has also hired Petra Lugones Targarona as head of German business. PineBridge plans to open a new Munich office. Targarona joins from Macquarie Investment Management, where she was head of institutional business for Germany.

Candriam Investors Group – Jörg Allenspach has been named executive officer of Candriam Switzerland, with responsibility for the manager’s further expansion in the country, in particular in the German-speaking region. He will succeed Bernard de Halleux, who will retire later this year although remaining a member of the supervisory board. Allenspach was most recently responsible for strategy and business development at BlackRock in Switzerland. Before that he worked for Swiss Re, latterly as head of investor solutions, private equity partners.

JP Morgan Asset Management – JPMAM has hired three senior staff for its exchange-traded funds (ETFs) business. Olivier Paquier joins from State Street Global Advisors as head of continental Europe ETF distribution. At State Street he led the company’s office in France and was responsible for ETF distribution across southern Europe.

Ivan Durdevic is the firm’s new head of ETF distribution for Switzerland. He joins from Amundi where he was deputy head of ETF and indexing sales for the country. John Harrington has been appointed head of beta and ETF product, to be based in London. He joins from Deutsche Bank where he was responsible for product development.

Baillie Gifford – The investment manager has announced five new partners: Matthew Brett, investment manager in the Japanese equity team; James Squires, investment manager in the multi asset team; Amy Atack, director with responsibility for clients in emerging markets strategies; Nick Wood, director with responsibility for US financial intermediary clients; and Evan Delaney, director of business risk and internal audit. 

Four Baillie Gifford partners will be retiring from the firm at the end of April: Sarah Whitley, head of the Japanese equity team; Stephen Rodger and Ken Barker, both partners within the firm’s fixed income area; and Pete Cooke, partner with responsibility for clients in the long-term global growth strategy. 

Hymans Robertson – The pensions and benefits consultancy has hired Baljit Khatra as a risk transfer consultant. Khatra was previously at Mercer where he worked on risk transfer transactions in its strategic solutions group.

Link Asset Services – Jean-Luc Neyens has joined the rebranded Capita Asset Services in Luxembourg as head of fund solutions, while Cornelius Bechtel has been appointed managing director, corporate services. Neyens was previously chairman of Degroof Petercam Asset Management in Hong Kong, and Bechtel was a partner at accountancy firm BDO Luxembourg. Australia’s Link Group acquired London-headquartered Capita Asset Services from Capita in November. Link Asset Services was recently announced as the operator of the Wales Pension Partnership, a £15bn (€17bn) collaboration of eight Welsh public sector funds.

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